“Well?” he queried.
“He suspects, I think,” said Vaughan.
“Worse — he knows. I did not anticipate failure when I let her remember. She will have told him everything. It is significant that he has taken her away without letting her see us again. He will be difficult.”
“If he returns.” Vaughan’s tone was gloomy.
“He will return. He knows the penalty for desertion. You had better leave this to me, Simon.”
“With the greatest pleasure in the world, Doctor.”
So it was that when Tony came back from Pentock he found only the doctor awaiting him, standing with his back to the fire in the great hall, his hands behind him, spread out to the blaze, and a cigarette drooping carelessly from the corner of his mouth.
Tony waited until Lorrimer had taken away his dripping oilskin and then, white with rage, he approached the doctor and faced him.
“Damn you, Gaunt!” he burst out.
The other raised a deprecating hand.
“One moment, Tony,” he said quietly. “You are angry, and justly so. I should not have taken such a step without first consulting you. Please forgive me; I acted for your best interests.”
The young man stared at him in frank astonishment.
“You admit it, then? You admit your responsibility for what happened last night?”
“The responsibility was yours, not mine, Tony. If you had not permitted yourself to become infatuated with this girl I should not have been compelled to act as I did.”
“To hell with that for a tale! I’ve been fooled by you and your precious friend Vaughan long enough. This time you have gone too far. You can’t bluff your way out of this. Valerie has opened my eyes.”
“Blinded them, I think, Tony, to the eternal values which once you thought so important.”
“Blast you and your eternal values! I know of nothing more valuable to me than the life of the girl I love. You tried to take her from me last night and failed, fortunately for you. If you had succeeded I should have killed you with my bare hands.”
Gaunt smiled gently.
“How melodramatic! I would not advise you ever to try anything so foolish. Lay but a hand upon me and it would be you who would die, not me.”
“I’m not at all sure that I believe that now. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. I’m through. You and Vaughan can pack your bags and clear out just as soon as you please.”
Controlling himself with a great effort, Tony turned away and went towards the staircase. Consequently he did not see the demoniacal rage which blazed for a moment from the doctor’s eyes. Gaunt’s voice was still calm and perfectly modulated when he spoke.
“One moment, Tony. Would you cast out your proved friends for this girl of whom you know nothing? Does she love you, even?”
Tony said not a word, but began to mount the staircase.
Again the doctor spoke.
“You poor deluded fool! Destroy yourself then in your own folly. At this very moment she is in Hamilton’s arms, laughing at you.”
Tony stopped and slowly turned his head.
“That’s not true,” said he.
Gaunt laughed sarcastically.
“You think it possible, then?” he sneered. “Oh, what a trusting lover have we here! How little you know of women and their ways! They are all whores, and Valerie Bennett is no better than the rest.”
Tony stood very still, going white to the lips. Then he came slowly down the stairs again and approached the doctor, who was coolly lighting another cigarette. He looked up as the young man approached and his lips twisted sardonically. The other stopped a few feet away and said very quietly:
“Take that back, please, Dr. Gaunt.”
The doctor laughed softly to himself and blew out a cloud of smoke, watching it as it curled upwards to the roof.
“I’ll give you one more chance, Gaunt. Take back what you said about Valerie and I’ll forget it.” Tony’s voice was hardly above a whisper, but he was shaking like a leaf with the fury of his passion. The doctor never moved, but only smiled the more.
“Very well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” As the young man raised his hand to strike the pale, sneering face, so the doctor’s narrowed eyes opened wide, blazing with a cold grey light. Tony felt as if he himself had been struck a violent blow, and reeled back, his hand falling helplessly to his side. For a moment he stood, his face puckering strangely, then he flung himself down upon the near-by settee and burst into a torrent of sobs.
He felt a gentle touch upon his bowed head, and looking up found the doctor bending over him, an expression of tender compassion upon his face.
Tony gulped. “I raised my hand against you master,” he whispered. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“It is forgiven already, my son. Forgive me, too, if I spoke harshly, but I had to break the spell she had cast over you.”
“It’s true, then, what you said?”
“Only too true, I fear. I spoke from knowledge, not at random. Come, I will show you.”
“No, no! I don’t want to see. I believe you.”
“You must. I cannot have you weakened like this. Come!”
The doctor’s old ascendancy conquered, and Tony followed him up to his room. There Gaunt took out his crystal and set it upon the table, motioning Tony to look into it.
“Look, my son,” said he, “and behold the frailty that is woman. I will not influence you at all. There is no deceit.”
He walked over to the window and stood looking out, while Tony gazed into the shadowy depths of the crystal, stretching his mind out towards Valerie. All at once he stiffened and his breath came faster.
What he saw need not be recorded. Suffice it that not many yards away Vaughan was sitting with the duplicate crystal, exercising his trained will to the uttermost, and projecting into the two co-ordinated spheres a vision which was wholly false, born in the dark recesses of his own obscene brain.
After a few minutes Tony sprang up, his cheeks stained a dull red and his mouth twisted with pain.
“No more!” he gasped. “I have seen enough. Oh, Valerie! And Hamilton — the filthy swine!”
Gaunt regarded him with quiet satisfaction.
“Be of good heart, my son,” said he. “Our great faith rises above such little things. You can have her, too, you know, provided you do not let her dominate your soul.”
“No! Not after that. I couldn’t touch her.” Angrily Tony dashed the tears from his eyes.
“Then, Tony,” pursued the doctor, “there only remains — vengeance!”
“How?”
“We will say the Black Mass with special intention for their destruction.”
“When?” Tony passed his tongue over his dry lips.
“Tonight. Afterwards their lives will not be worth the living.” He caught Tony’s shoulders in a firm grip. “All power is given unto us. Those two shall rue the day they offended you, my brother.”
Tony’s lip twisted into a snarl.
“They shall,” he muttered.
“Go to your room, then, my son, and pray to our Lord that He will look favourably upon our sacrifice. When all is ready I will summon you.”
When the young man had gone Vaughan rejoined his colleague.
“Did I do well?” he inquired.
“Far better than I had hoped. You were in great form tonight, Simon. He was very difficult at first, but now he thinks only of revenge. You shall say the Mass tonight and he will help you.”
“Magnificent! In the meantime . . . Hamilton?”
“Yes, I had thought of that. We will endeavour to put a spoke in the wheel of our friend the Reverend Father Bennett.” Gaunt chuckled. “Come, let us see what is really happening there.”
They sat down at the crystal and were almost immediately watching the scene in the rector’s study, where Hamilton was relating his version of the visit to the Abbey.
For a long time they sat thus, the doctor occasionally moving his lips silently.
Suddenly his face changed, and Vaughan looked up, about to speak, but was silenced by a gesture. The mocking smile had disappeared from Gaunt’s lips and his eyes were wide. His companion could feel the energy pouring from that rigid form into the crystal. A strange hush came over the room and the pale light within the sphere grew stronger. The tension increased until Vaughan felt that he could bear it no longer — that he must scream or die. A faint groan came from Gaunt’s lips, and the sweat glistened on his brow.
Then, with a splintering crash, the quivering crystal burst into a thousand fragments, and Gaunt sprang up, his chair going over behind him. He stood trembling with rage, and taking out his handkerchief began to dab his cheek, where the blood was welling from a gash inflicted by one of the slivers of flying glass.
The other sat huddled up, his face grey with terror and his great body trembling like a leaf.
“That damned girl again,” said the doctor in a thick voice; “but for her he would not have gone in.”
“They are moving against us,” whimpered Vaughan.
“Yes, and we must move faster. Tonight will see the beginning of the end.”
“Why not the end itself?” Vaughan urged. “Why must we wait until the twenty-fifth? I know you have told Tony that it is because that day is the anniversary of the Abbot’s curse, but what has that to do with it, when the monstrosity was here long before then?”
“Because that day is not only the anniversary of the Abbot’s curse, but also, by what at first seems a strange coincidence, the anniversary of the day, centuries before, when the Veil was rent, and the monstrosity first came into the world. It is really no coincidence, for these matters are governed by laws which even I do not fully understand, but I do know, for certain weighty cosmic reasons which I cannot explain to you, Simon, that upon that day only, at twelve noon, can the monstrosity be released from this rock and loosed upon the world. It can be released from its bondage to the Lovells at any time, and that is what Tony will do, all unknowingly, tonight.”
Shortly after midnight the three met again in the crypt. Tony’s temporary rebellion against his old allegiance had left him more devoted to the occult faith than ever before, and he was determined to make amends for his lapse. His blind rage of the afternoon had been replaced by a grim resolve to have his revenge upon the girl who he believed had been responsible for his infidelity, and who had been proved so unworthy.
He vested rapidly, eager to begin the ceremony which he knew would effect his purpose; at once testifying to his renewed enthusiasm and bringing disaster upon the heads of the unhappy pair who had wronged him. When he had finished he began to prepare the incense, lighting the necessary charcoal and putting it into the thurible. In the absence of servers he, as subdeacon, would have to act as thurifer, in addition to his other duties.
While Tony was thus engaged Vaughan and Gaunt put on their own vestments in silence. The former wore the customary chasuble of the celebrant, and the latter the deacon’s dalmatic. Their attire was identical with that of the sacred ministers at a Catholic High Mass, and the vestments had, indeed, been used for that purpose at one time, before they were degraded to their present office.
The altar had been draped with a dark cloth and bore six tall candles of black wax, which burnt with a smoky, bluish flame. In the centre stood an inverted crucifix with a serpent coiled about the Figure. One of Vaughan’s trunks served for a credence table, upon which stood chalice and paten, and the cruets of wine and water. The dim light of the candles was reinforced by two lamps set on the floor.
When all was ready the three took up their positions on the altar steps, and the dreadful mockery began. Thick yellow clouds of pungent incense-smoke billowed up against the low roof.
Until the consecration the ritual tallied with normal Catholic procedure, save that the prayers were invariably twisted into blasphemous contradiction, the great voice of the apostate priest echoing round the distant walls as he intoned them.
What must Vaughan’s thoughts be? Tony wondered, as he watched him bending over the altar, the blue glimmer of the candles shining on his hairless skull. Did he remember the countless times he had performed this self-same act, with how different an intention, before he had joined the legions of Darkness? But Tony had never been a Catholic, and the peculiarly monstrous nature of the contradiction did not occur to him. He was disposed to look upon all sacramental ceremony as somewhat childish and absurd, and did his part automatically, as he had been taught, with little thought for the deep significance of his actions.
“Hoc est enim corpus meum . . .” the most awful words that the lips of man can utter. Tony heard them, scarcely realizing the tremendous miracle which was taking place; for, whatever his crimes, Vaughan’s priestly power was indestructible.
“Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei — .”
The Sacred Body and the Precious Blood were on the altar. Vaughan did not genuflect, but made an obscene gesture, then turned and beckoned Tony. The young man approached, took the Chalice from the priest, and deliberately poured its Contents upon the altar steps. The Blood splashed as it fell, spattering the white skirt of his alb with the red drops of guilt. He flung the empty vessel from him, and as it rang upon the stone floor the echoes of its fall were caught and flung backwards and forwards under the vaulted roof until it seemed as if a legion of fiends was gathered in the shadows, laughing, laughing . . .
The brief clamour died away and a strange hush followed, as if all creation were watching the sacrilege with bated breath. For a moment that seemed as long as eternity the three stood motionless, their gorgeous vestments shimmering in the dim light.
Gaunt was the first to move, and he too mounted the altar steps, drawing from his girdle a small dagger of peculiar design, which he handed to Tony. As his fingers closed round the cold metal hilt a sudden pang shot up the young man’s arm and he all but dropped the thing. Recovering himself, he faced the altar once more and raised the dagger aloft. The candlelight glittered evilly along the triangular blade. The watching shadows crowded closer upon the circle of light about the altar. The hush deepened until the silence seemed to press in upon them like a palpable thing. Tony’s eyes were fixed upon the Host, which lay before him startlingly white against the dark cloth. Yet again a thrill of anguish ran through his veins like fire, but, clenching his teeth, he brought the dagger sharply down, transfixing the gleaming disk which was the Heart of God. His own heart turned to ice as he saw the crimson stain spreading from the wound, but, swept away on the wings of ritual, he lifted the holy Thing and cast It to the ground, grinding It with his heel into the dust.
Instantly the silence was broken by an appalling tumult of sound, such as Tony had heard once before, on the night his father died. Now it was infinitely louder and more near — beneath his very feet. At the same moment the solid rock began to heave like the restless sea which surrounded it.
All three were flung to the ground, and lay where they fell, stunned by the din. The great stone top of the altar was forced violently upwards, scattering the candles in all directions. And a mighty wind came roaring up out of the depths, extinguishing the lamps and whirling round the crypt like a hurricane.
Gaunt alone kept command of his senses during those awful moments. As soon as he was able he began to crawl across the reeling floor, the wind plucking at his robes, one hand outstretched, searching for Tony in the darkness. At last he found him, and putting his lips close to the young man’s ear he shouted at the top of this voice:
“Quickly! Make an act of renunciation of your power over this thing. You can no longer control it. I can. Quickly, our lives depend upon it.”
Painfully Tony gathered his scattered wits together, and, realizing the urgency of the doctor’s appeal, strove to concentrate all his energies upon the matter. Locking his hands in Gaunt’s, he focused his will upon the other, and as their minds vibrated in unison he uttered the words with his whole being:
“Whatsoever power I have over this monstrosity I
renounce, and yield it utterly to thee.”
The thick darkness hid the dreadful grin of triumph on the doctor’s face as he staggered to his feet, crying:
“Be still, thou creature of the Outer Darkness, be still! Thy master commands!”
Immediately the bellowing ceased and the wind died away.
The quivering of the rock continued for a while, but soon even that was stilled.
II
Tony came down to breakfast in a thoughtful mood. He had had no further conversation with the doctor since the celebration of the Black Mass, for, when they had relit the lamps and secured the altar-stone once more, all three had retired to bed at once, utterly exhausted by the terrible experience they had undergone. Tony had fallen into a heavy, dreamless sleep the moment his head touched the pillow, and when he woke the sun was high over the sea.
His rage of yesterday against Valerie and Hamilton for the supposed wrong they had done him was spent. He scarcely thought of them, but racked his brains continually to discover what Gaunt’s purpose had been in persuading him to assist at the fantastic ceremony in the crypt. He told himself that the doctor must have known what would happen; how the curse, its strength multiplied a thousandfold, would become uncontrollable by him. It would seem that the difficulties of banishing it from the island were now almost insuperable, though the bonds which had bound the horror to himself were, apparently, broken. Badly wanting Gaunt’s opinion on the matter, he hurried down the great staircase and along the corridor to the dining-hall.
To his surprise, the table was not laid, and the ashes of yesterday’s fire still littered the hearth. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was after ten, and, frowning slightly, made his way to the kitchen.
There was no sign of the Lorrimers, and no fire burnt in the great kitchen range. On the table, however, was an envelope addressed to himself. He tore it open and quickly read the brief note within:
Dark Sanctuary Page 20
